


and the seasons, they go round and round

by spacenarwhal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Gardens & Gardening, Growing Old, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: Cas plants lavender in October.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 14





	and the seasons, they go round and round

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 2021 y'all. 
> 
> I'm starting the year by writing for a fandom I haven't visited since 2011, but my heart is full and this story demanded to be written. 
> 
> I'm very shaky on the canon heavy details but all you really need to know is that Dean and Cas love each other and they're growing old together.

Cas plants lavender in October. 

Dean grumbles and grouses but still hefts trays of potted plants into the Impala’s trunk, says nothing about the stray dirt left behind.

He's watched Cas walk the little plot of dirt he’s singled out a hundred times, looked on from the kitchen window for months now as Cas tends it, weeding and turning the dirt over, breaking it up with an ancient rake he found in the old shed out back and a spade he bought from the general store down in town. Dean’s gotten used to catching Cas with dirt under his nails at the dinner table and having to remind him to wash up before eating. 

Dean's grown enough to recognize Cas is a grown man--millennium old, Cas reminds him in his less tolerant moods-- who doesn't need babysitting, has made sure to give him space to do his thing while Dean minds his own business, but there's probably always going to be part of him that gets uneasy watching Cas disappear inside his head.

Dean's got too much experience waiting for Cas to come back. 

“I don’t mean to scare you.” Cas apologized once, back before they started keeping still, before his plot of dirt, before the cabin, before that afternoon Castiel took his face in his hands and kissed him, steady and sure, like it was something they'd done a hundred times before. Back when they first set out from the bunker and Cas had a tendency to wander, coming back with pockets full of crap ( _this isn't_ _not crap_ , Cas always argued back, red-faced and insistent, making Dean feel like a dick because he didn't have a right to judge Cas for wanting more to hold on to than the ancient duffle full of second-hand clothes and a busted old hunter who didn't know how to accept a change). "But I find that for all I know, all I knew of existence, even the little I learned before, none of it has ever been like this." He gestured around, like they were anywhere they hadn't been a hundred-thousand times before, a dingy roadside motel that had definitely never seen better days, "I've never had time to indulge curiosity, if that makes any sense." 

Dean didn’t know what to say to that, that age-old self loathing rearing its ugly head. Because Cas’s brushes with humanity have always been temporary, because Dean pushed him away when he should have been there to show him the ropes, because in all the years of knowing each other they’ve hurt each other as many times as they’ve saved one another lives. So he didn’t say anything other than a tried and true, “Don’t worry about it, man, just you know, a little heads up next time so I know no one's snatched you.” Dean clapped Cas on the shoulder in a way that felt safe and went out to root around Baby's trunk like there was anything he could find there to get rid of the uneasy itch between his shoulders. 

It’s not less scary now--now that they've got this place and Dean wakes in the middle of the night wrapped around Cas or wrapped up in him, listening to the forest all around them until he can drift back to sleep--but its different too, watching Cas pour over the dozens of library books he’s collected from dozens of counties and states, or hunched over their laptop with countless tabs open, a old composition notebook at his elbow full of his illegible scrawl.

Sam had laughed at Dean over the phone back when Cas first started poking at the dirt, told Dean not to worry too much, that it just sounded like Cas had found a passion project, because Sammy still says shit like _passion project_. It shouldn’t surprise Dean considering his brother threw in the towel to pursue more intellectual pursuits, buried in the bunker library trying to make a comprehensive system and bring all that information into the digital age for hunters everywhere to peruse. 

(“We gotta cut the cord sometimes right?” Sam said the morning they said goodbye and of all the ways Dean pictured it he never thought he’d be the one driving away, a fallen age in the passenger seat while Sammy stayed behind. But Sam wanted to get out, wanted to know what living might be like with one person and one place to call home, and Dean was still looking for something, something he knew he wasn’t going to find in the bunker. There were too many bloodstains left there that no amount of cleaning would ever erase, and Sam probably understood that, because he never asked Dean why he had to go.)

"You could find one too." He'd suggested unhelpfully and Dean told Sam to shut up and then spent a week perfecting his pie crust game just to spite him. 

“Do you want to help?” Cas asks, because Dean’s really just been hovering since he dropped off the last tray of plants. He could probably head inside, scrounge up something to do, pick up his book, pull something from the freezer to get it thawed for dinner, hell he could even take a nap. It’s early enough and the day isn’t exactly likely to be eventful. 

But Cas is kneeling there in the dirt, pulling the first of the pot-shaped dirt balls out of its plastic container, and Dean doesn’t really want to go away. 

His knees are probably going to hate him for it, but he kneels in the damp dirt for the rest of the morning, following Cas’ instructions and doing what he’s told, making sure he spaces out each plant according to Cas’ markings. It doesn’t look like much once they’ve got them all in the dirt, but then Cas tells him they got to put down mulch to keep weeds from encroaching, “And it’ll protect the roots during the winter.” He says sagely, touching one of the little stems. Dean doesn't know much about plants outside of what to look for in a hex bag and what to steer clear of when they're stomping through the woods--poision oak is a bitch--but he likes the look of these, or maybe its the look on Cas' face as he studies them. (There's plenty of stuff around the cabin that belongs to Cas from the ugly gingham apron he wears when he tries his hand in the kitchen to the collection of postcards he started picking up Dean doesn't know when, stuck across the frige doors and pinned to the bulletin board over their desk to the mishmash collection of books he keeps right next to Dean's battered paperbacks. This place is _theirs_ , through and through, but there's something that makes Dean's chest go loose and easy kneeling in the dirt next to Cas, watching him lay down literal roots.)

The work takes them into the early afternoon, both of them quiet and focused on creating neat circles around the base of each plant, devoid of mulch—it smells like the forest grounds around them, damp and earthy and alive—because Cas says the plants need room to breathe. "In the winter we'll have to put down straw to make sure the frost doesn't do too much damage," Cas says, a look of utmost concentration pinched between his eyebrows. He looks up, mouth soft with faux wonder, "That is, if you'd like to help me." Dean can already see himself lugging the stuff back from town because Cas traded in his truck for a goddamn bicycle, shakes his head and kneads the mulch between his fingers the way he would dough to test it for readiness even if the texture isn't really the same. 

By the time they’re done Dean’s knees are aching and his back is stiff, the back of his neck overly warm from being exposed to the sun for too long. He winces when he stretches and hopes his doesn’t sunburn too badly. Next to him Cas looks content, face flushed with pride and fall sunlight, wiping his dirty hands on his threadbare jeans. The knees are definitely soaked through and muddied but dirt is better than bile and viscera any day of the week. 

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas says, voice kind and eyes fond, looking at Dean in a way that Dean is still getting used to it. He’s closer to fifty than forty nowadays, a late bloomer in most things related to being a functional human being Sam might say, but he knows how to offer Cas his hand to help him stand. “Don’t mention it.”

Castiel doesn’t let it go, offers him a grin that makes the crowfeet at the corners of his eyes sink deep. There's grey in his dark hair these days and white speckled through his stubble, but even without grace there's still something infinite to him in Dean's eyes, something immense and unfathomable that Dean will probably spend the rest of his life trying to understand. 

A few years back, Dean probably would have had to work to untangle an uneasy knot from around his stomach, would have had to fight off the insistent little voice that still pops up from time to time telling him this isn’t really his to keep, that Cas is going to get tired of playing house and move on or go back to Jack’s heaven or be taken away, the way so many other people Dean’s loved have been. 

But today he wonders what Cas is going to want to plant next and whether this whole garden thing is going to lead to that beehive Cas has bookmarked online. He wonders if Cas has already looked up what type of vegetables will grow here and if they can get an apple tree. 

“C’mon Cas, let’s get cleaned up.” He swings his arm around Cas’ shoulders, pulls him in close enough to press a kiss against his temple. “You definitely owe me lunch.” 


End file.
